Anti-discrimination law over pay: Italian and European solutions in comparison*

WP C.S.D.L.E. “Massimo D’Antona”.INT – 107/2014

This essay has been anonymously peer-reviewed by a referee selected by the editors.Submitted: 2014-05-10; Accepted: 2014-06-20; Published: 2014-06-26

The weaknesses in the anti-discrimination law over pay show that the pay gap between men and women is still a problem. The aim of this paper is to highlight the main limits of Italian and European legislation against gender pay discrimination in order to elaborate new proposals to enhance equality by reducing wage gap. At first tyhe A. calls attention to the lack of transparency on the wage structure and on the wages’ amount, that prevent from verifying whether there is any discrimination. Secondly since the ECJ held that discrimination in pay conditions has to be referred to a “single source”, it is difficult to apply the anti-discrimination law over pay. Finally the A. will consider the difficulties in choosing the male employee (“the comparator”) whose wage will be compared to the one of female employee in sectors with high horizontal segregation. What are the answers given by the Italian legislation and by European Union to these cases?